


you could be mine (for real. properly.)

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bedside Vigils, Coulson has a lot of FEELS about how flawless Daisy is, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Love Confessions, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 20:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6023095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valentine's Day prompt: Daisy spends Valentine's Day by Coulson's hospital bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you could be mine (for real. properly.)

He notices the silence first - and maybe it’s just the drugs that make everything go slow but for a moment he thinks he’s woken up in a world hollowed of people. But then he sees Daisy, curled in a chair, working at her tablet and smiling relaxed when she notices he’s awake. She seems cheerful, not relief, which means his wounds weren’t serious. He thinks about it: he’s not in pain, except for the light headache that throbs on his left temple.

“Good, you’re back with us,” she says, putting her work away.

He remembers the last moments by pieces - another reckless mission, another day of tasting adrenaline in his mouth, and then having to ask for an extraction.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Daisy frowns. “I’m sorry for making you come out to help.”

“What? That’s - that’s _fine_. It’s our job.”

He sits up a bit. She’s wrong.

“But it was my-?”

“ _Mission_? Yeah, I know,” she says, and Coulson searches for the resentment in her voice.

He props himself to a half-upright position. The gurneys at the lab are not the most comfortable but he somehow feels he could sleep better here than he’s done in his bed for months. They have put a lot of pillows in it, too. He feels weird pampered, weirdly _cared for_. He didn’t think that would feel like something unusual but it does.

It’s a bit shocking looking at Daisy’s face so close and he realizes how little they have seen of each other lately. He always leaves early, comes late. Daisy is waging her own war, taking care of her own army. Coulson is an army of one.

(her voice, though; her voice is still with him all the time, coming through the comms, asking about his secret mission, asking if he needs backup, telling him she’s coming home too - all professional, and professionally coded, but he has never lost her voice)

“Why are you not angry?” he asks, his tongue a bit too heavy, his thoughts a bit too soft due to the painkillers. A little too honest.

“I am,” Daisy tells him quietly, twisting one finger into the thin fabric of her pants, right above the knee, and only now Coulson realizes she’s wearing pajamas. “I _hate_ it that you’re out there taking risks on your own. But it’s not like I can criticize what you’re trying to do. You just want to get the bad guys.”

Leave it to Daisy to think better of him than Coulson could. He has been able to excuse it and rationalize it pretty well, and he doesn’t think he’s wrong exactly. He’s thought about it as necessary, as something that should have been done a long time ago. He had never thought about it as something morally correct. Is she thinking of her parents, who would raze and burn villages to the ground for her? Except Coulson is not sure who he’s doing it all for.

“You’re very accommodating,” he says, resenting Daisy a bit for it.

“I’m really not,” she replies. Her eyes go a bit hard, but not all the way. “I just… I get it.”

She gets it.

It’s unfair to her that he is surprised. Daisy’s goodness is so blinding he sometimes forget how much darkness she can relate to. Of course she can relate. Grief, anger, feeling like he’s failed everybody, thinking there’s something so wrong with him. How could she not?

“I’m still sorry,” he repeats.

“Good, that’s good.”

Daisy never expects apologies, so she treats them with the seriousness they deserve. It’s one of his favorite things about her. It might be all the rest, being relaxed, being here, the fact that he’s willing to admit he has favorite things about her.

(all of them)

For some reason an object on the corner of his eye catches his attention. It’s a square, pruple box.

“What’s this?”

She shifts in her seat.

“That’s… well, it’s stupid, but. Valentine’s Day _chocolate_.”

Coulson takes a moment to put two and two together.

“It’s Sunday. Was I out for so long?”

Daisy smiles a bit. “Yeah. Apparently you needed the rest.”

He can believe that. It feels he hasn’t been _home_ in decades - not since before… Not since before. Where is home anyway. He is not sure he knows what it looks like anymore, but staring at Daisy hugging her knees and smiling at him like she’s so glad he’s awake and with her and they are talking Coulson gets the old, familiar, _dangerous_ feeling that home must look a lot like this. 

“Why is everything so quiet?”

“It’s late, for starters,” Daisy tells him. He feels bad about making her wait up, though he knows she is used to keeping late hours because she works so hard. “Mack and Hunter took Bobbi out for some drinks. May went to see Andrew. And Simmons… well, Jemma was not feeling the Valentine’s Day vibe this year.”

Coulson nods. He’s worried and perfectly aware he can’t help in any way.

He suspects there’s a reason Daisy is here with him and not somewhere else tonight, too.

“When I was a kid I used to think V-Day meant Valentine’s Day and not Victory Day. I was very confused why there was so much talk about war veterans in connection to Valentine’s Day,” he tells Daisy, to give her something.

Her face relaxes into a surprised grin.

He draws his fingers across the surface of the chocolate box again.

“Why the chocolate?” he asks, even though she already explained.

“I bought for everyone in the team,” she says.

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Because you guys are all great and I want you all to be my Valentines?”

That makes Coulson smile for some reason. Daisy, whose love for everyone around her is as unbridled as water, and is not ashamed for it. He envies that, perhaps. Then he remembers the world has only paid Daisy back with pain and betrayal. 

“Your chocolate is better though,” she explains, her eyes lighting up in a way Coulson doesn’t understand. “Like, I did splash out with yours. Don’t tell the others.”

He curls his fingers around the edges of the box. He’s curious to see what she got him. It doesn’t seem like much and he is touched by Daisy’s definition of splashing out.

“Why is mine better?”

“You’re full of questions tonight,” she teases him, trying to deflect. He holds her gaze. She gets serious. “Well, that’s obvious.”

“Is it?” Coulson asks. Because he can’t believe it is.

She presses her lips together and nods imperceptibly. “Yeah. _It is_.”

She looks down at Coulson’s hand, then at his face, like she’s asking for permission. He guesses she’s thinking back to the last time she held his hand - the first time _she_ held his hand - and he rejected her. He wonders what has changed from then. Maybe he has. He thought he had lost himself back there in that planet. Maybe it’s the blow to his head, maybe it’s all these weeks alone on the hunt (maybe he’s _missed_ her), maybe it’s the way Daisy moves her hand so slowly and so careful like she expects another rejection and quietly covers Coulson’s knuckle, but he’s beginning to think that wasn’t it. He’s beginning to think all this was just him trying to be cleansed.

Daisy squeezes his hand experimentally, pressing the pad of her thumb against the curve of his wrist.

It’s obvious. Isn’t it?

Yeah.

It is.

“And hey, I know you’re on your mission or crusade, or whatever, it’s fine,” she says. “I know you _need_ to do that right now. And I need to focus on my team and my people.” Coulson nods. “But maybe next year you could be my Valentine. For real. _Properly_.”

He takes too much in replying - how do you even begin to reply to that? how do you face someone like Daisy and her shameless, dangerous love? - and he watches Daisy’s face begin to fall with the realization of one more rejection (one more rejection from him).

Coulson grabs her hand quickly, wraps his fingers around her wrist and brings her palm to his mouth. He shuts his eyes tightly. He presses his lips hard against the lines. Right where the heart line meets the fate line. It has pretty much been the same for them, anyway.

Her body tenses when his mouth touches her palm - a bit like every muscle in his body tensed when she held his hand that time. But it’s different.

When he opens his eyes Daisy is still there, and smiling at him, nodding just a bit, nodding just enough.

They can’t go on like this, with her hand in his, lifted halfway, it’s a bit awkward, so he lets her go and they look at each other, Daisy with a shy smile, Coulson with quiet awe. It hasn’t sunk in just yet.

“Do you… want to share the chocolates?” he asks.

Daisy quirks one eyebrow. “Why do you think I bought _you_ the good ones?”

“You knew I’d end up giving you some?”

Daisy leans back against the chair with a challenging look.

“Yep.”

Coulson chuckles, grabbing the box of chocolates from the bedstand and offering.

It’s good to be home.


End file.
